Wren
I crossed the ancient ring in the firelight with my three behind me, and the whole gathered wolf world watched me do it.
Up close, the woman in Council blue was even older than the stones made her look, and stood straighter than any of them. Silver braids to her waist. A face like weathered oak. And those eyes, dark and deep-set and fierce, that had found me across the whole bowl like a hawk finds a field mouse, except there was no hunger in them. There was something worse. There was recognition.
"So," she said. "The north wasn't exaggerating for once."
"Wren," the old woman said, patting my arm with her too-strong hand, cozy as if we were back at my kitchen table, "this is Isolde, Alpha of the Greyrock Pack, eldest seat of this Council, and the only one of the nine worth the wax
